


The Long Wait

by Wix



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Fix It, Gen, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sorry Not Sorry, not team Cap friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 00:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21347236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wix/pseuds/Wix
Summary: As the Rogues wait in Wakanda, the world turns against them.
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Comments: 130
Kudos: 3634
Collections: Best Team Iron Man, EGFixIts, Fics I Don't Want To Lose, Finished faves, Post-Civil War Media Fallout (Team Iron Man), Team Decency (Salty Team Iron Man Fics), Tony Stark Defense Squad I, ToskaDre_Favs





	The Long Wait

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently I'm salty today.  
Here's just a short for you all to enjoy.  
Heads up - this is so obviously not Steve Rogers friendly or Team Cap friendly that if that's your cup of tea you need to go now. You've been warned.

It was jarring to say the least.

It was like the Tony that walked into the Hydra Base and the Tony that walked out of the hospital were two entirely different people.

Granted, Steve was having to base his opinions on television interviews and online articles, tiny glimpses of Tony colored by the media since they were temporarily stuck in Wakanda; but it was still odd. The media called it a ‘return to form’ or ‘the return of Tony Stark’ like the billionaire had gone somewhere in the last few years and had just come back. It seemed like overnight the other man had stepped completely back into the limelight and was thriving now that the ‘Civil War’ was over. _Thirty and Thriving, How Tony Stark Got His Groove Back_ was the most recent article that posed itself on the cover of some magazine that Steve found laying around the main area and Steve wasn’t all that sure if that’s how he’d describe the Tony Stark he was seeing now. Tony had stepped back up into the limelight, stepping back into Stark Industries in a big way. Rumors had it that he was discussing future weapons projects with the United States government once again, a rumor that had been met with unanimous approval despite the fact that Steve felt people should be a lot more concerned about the brunet coming up with new ways for people to destroy themselves and others.

_ “How does it feel? Having the Compound all to yourself these days?” The female reporter asks and Tony gives such a genuine laugh that Steve’s hard pressed to say it’s fake even though he knows it has to be. _

_ “God, so freeing.” Tony says with a smile. “Sometimes that’s what it takes though. I sided with SHIELD when I thought that they were doing good things only to learn that they were not what they seemed and I stood beside Steve Rogers until I learned that neither was he. Perhaps we all got taken in by that though. A kind of nostalgia for a time that never was. A belief in a perfect system that we pretend existed but never actually did. It’s up to us to make our own future, not look to and be collared by the past.” _

They’re calling him the ‘Futurist’ once again, and this time Steve can’t sense any underlying insult in the title. There’s a hope there, a hope that they’ll find their way and that Tony Stark will lead the charge. They even say that the Iron Man pilot was the true victor of the ‘Civil War’ between himself and Steve – a statement that Steve would argue against and he’s sure that Tony would too if asked about those final moments – and they dedicate so much time and energy labeling him a ‘Hero of the Future’ and a ‘Hero of the People’. Whatever that means.

Tony’s loving it though, of that Steve is certain. He seems to have it all together whenever the camera is pointing at him. He looks healthy and happy and like he has so few cares in the world and Steve wonders what he’s really doing when he’s alone in his workshop at night.

Natasha and the others are worried about that too. Tony has habits, he has a history of downward spirals that he’s always been good about hiding from the media’s gaze. Look at Ultron after all. How long was Tony working on that and not one person had been any the wiser at it until it came to destroy them?

_ “It’s funny that they say the war is over.” Natasha says, looking at the television screen as the talk show host says something to that effect. “Tony’s just getting started.” _

_ “You think Tony’s going to attack us?” Sam asks and Nat lets out an almost amused huff. _

_ “What do you think all of this is? He’s never stopped. He’s in it to win it. Regardless of the damage left in his wake.” She says and Wanda clenches a fist. _

_ “Like he’s ever done anything else.” _

Steve wants to say that he doesn’t believe Nat. He wants to say that he thinks it’s a good thing that Tony’s stepped away from them and their little fight for a bit in order to work on himself…but he knows that he’d be lying. Nat’s right after all. Tony doesn’t let things go and he never lets anyone get one over on him without coming back and decimating them. It was something that was spelled out in the SHIELD personality profile that just irked Steve to no end. Now he feels like he’s about to see the results of that.

And he’s not wrong. Not that he has to wait long to figure that out. The world has been asking ‘Where is Team Cap?’ and demanding that wherever they are or whoever is hiding them to show themselves because there are ‘repercussions’ that they feel must be paid for. T’Challa is clearly uninterested by the calls for ‘accountability’ but Steve’s starting to notice the sideways glances that the random workers at the palace are starting to send their way. Nat’s starting to worry about them too. She worries that T’Challa’s control and authority will only be unchallenged for so long, eventually someone is bound to reveal their location, it’s just a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’. She becomes even more concerned about it when the news comes out that international trials are being set forth for the ‘Rogue Avengers’ and while Tony Stark has stayed out of it so far, that doesn’t mean that the old SHIELD agents who survived the purge are doing the same.

Instead, data flows to the international investigator’s channels from old SHIELD files and Hydra files downloaded or acquired from various sources. Files that show that Tony wasn’t the only Avenger to get a personality profile done on him and the one they did on Steve with tack on’s from his past superiors don’t paint Steve in a very good light.

_ “This was Colonel Phillips. The man who **actually** ran the Howling Commandos from which Steve Rogers was merely a soldier in.” The reporter says about the old files recovered. “This paints a dangerous individual who showed all of the signs of the ‘Civil War’ long before it came to pass. Why didn’t this information get out? Why didn’t people know about Rogers’s shortcomings as a soldier and the fact that his own boss was concerned about Rogers in a longstanding sort of way. He thought that Rogers was the best choice for the serum that they had at the time, but not a **good** choice. A choice that he would have never let Erskine make if they’d had the time to pick another. A sentiment that he apparently never changed even as they whitewashed Rogers’s history.” _

That’s not true. None of it is true. Steve knows that Phillips stood beside him in all things. Sure, they had some disagreements, but Steve always proved in the end that he’d made the right choice whenever he had to go against a superior order. Didn’t he stop those bombs? Didn’t he save all those soldiers? Didn’t he stop the Red Skull? Why is no one saying anything about that?

Nat says that it’s because they’re trying to paint a new narrative. Something that goes against the good one that Steve’s had for the last fifty or so years. She says to just bunker down because it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

_ “These files are horrifying! And to think that this woman has just been walking around without a care in the world is absolutely sickening.” Another news reporter says, their words angry and impassioned. “She willingly tortured innocent people. She dug around in their minds for ‘practice’ and left them drooling husks. They say there’s video of some of them where she’s smiling after she’s finished ‘getting information out of them’. And now we’re just learning that she signed up with Ultron before the Johannesburg incident? That she was directly responsible for setting off the Hulk in a civilian population? Thank god that Stark was there to stop him or who knows what the Witch might have accomplished. Who knows how many lives would have been lost? Are we just supposed to forgive and forget because she decided to flip sides when Ultron wanted to kill us all, her included? No!” _

Sokovia puts out an arrest warrant for Wanda later that day. Steve sees her watching the news, biting her nails as the current leaders practically spit on her and all of her accomplishments, letting out information and pictures of Wanda’s time with her brother when they joined forces with several anarchist groups in Sokovia and the ongoing cases of investigation to see if she’d been involved with the various bombings and attacks on government buildings and officials during those times.

“Did you?” Sam asks once and Wanda just gives a small, almost careless shrug.

“We were fighting to save Sokovia.” She says. “We did what had to be done.”

As funny as it is, Sam doesn’t ask her about it ever again.

They go after Clint and Natasha next. Dragging their service records with SHIELD and before out into the open and Steve isn’t sure whether to sigh or rip his own hair out as he hears people demand blood for blood spilled. It doesn’t take long after that for various agencies and governments start demanding some sort of retribution against the two of them for stolen goods, killed employees or other things the spies have done.

It’s the first time that Pepper Potts steps onto the scene, letting out information about Natasha’s time as ‘Natalie Rushman’ and the data that she stole from Stark Industries once upon a time. She also reveals something about unwanted body modifications or substances introduced into the body on Tony’s behalf that Nat did. Steve asks her about it and she rolls her eyes.

“Pott’s is making it out worse than it is. Like she always does.” Nat says. “That serum saved Tony’s life. She should be thanking me and she knows it.”

The world doesn’t seem to agree though. As Potts reveals more of the time surrounding the Stark Expo and Tony’s severe poisoning that was killing him at the time – people rally behind him. A man who had been very sick and who still managed to save the day with no casualties. A man who had to have been terrified, whose behaviors during that time suddenly make perfect sense and they spit on SHIELD and Nat and Fury for having the cure and holding it out until they could control Tony with it.

The more and more that the world looks into Tony’s experiences with the Avengers and SHIELD the more they liken him to an abuse victim who finally got free of his abusers. Steve doesn’t appreciate that at all.

_ “They’d all been mind raped by the Witch and Rogers just decides ‘hey no, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done I say you’re good’ and bam! Suddenly we’re supposed to believe that she changed and that everyone she hurt has miraculously gotten over it? There are even rumors of new evidence that shows that Tony Stark developed and created his B.A.R.F. system to deal with the Witch constantly getting in his mind for **two years** after she joined up. Can you even imagine that? And what did Rogers say to that? Oh don’t worry, she helped us so she’s good, deal with it? I think we deserve to know what went on behind closed doors.” _

That one’s the worst – because that one Steve can verify. He remembers Tony coming to him after Ultron, telling him that Wanda had been in his mind and that she was still doing it. That he had proof.

Steve hadn’t been willing to listen to it. Wanda was still new to her powers and was learning…not to mention Steve feels that he might have ignored any ‘evidence’ that Tony provided about the girl’s wrongdoings because of the fact that Tony’s ‘evidence’ had gotten him out of repercussions from creating Ultron when they all knew better.

Tony eventually stopped coming around as much, moved out of the Compound and Steve had never seen Wanda so happy. It had seemed like a good trade off. Tony was always upsetting someone at some point and now he was off doing whatever it was he needed to do and they were doing them. Plus, he had Bucky to find.

That’s the information that really starts to make people avoid them now though. They look at Wanda like she’s either trash or a bomb about to go off and Steve notices how they’re starting to look at T’Challa like that too whenever the king isn’t looking in their direction. Nat starts telling Steve at that point that they need to have a backup in mind because Wakanda is about to become a place that’s not safe for them much longer.

Steve tells her that she’s worrying about something that will never happen. T’Challa is king, and they’re the good guys. The people will realize that soon enough.

That isn’t how it ends up playing out. Instead, Tony finally comes onto the scene in a big way, telling the world what actually happened in Siberia between him and Steve and the world loses its mind. Suddenly the bruises and the broken bones weren’t from some imaginary Winter Soldier core that Steve had gone to stop, now it was ‘Captain America’s’ hands that had done them, against his own teammate. They don’t acknowledge how Steve could have killed Tony but that he didn’t. No, they only care about his secrets and about the murder of the Stark’s and Tony’s own secret pain.

Princess Shuri comes to them a few nights later, a fire in her eyes as she and the Dora take them down. She’s wearing a form of the Black Panther costume as she does and Steve notices how everyone bows to her now in the way that they once bowed to T’Challa. He doesn’t learn until after it’s all done that Shuri demanded that T’Challa either take appropriate action against the Rogues for the sake of Wakanda or step down – a demand that she eventually followed up with legal force when T’Challa didn’t. She’s queen now. She’s queen and she’s revealed to the world her brother’s mistakes and the rogue’s locations.

It’s the last time Steve sees his team. Wanda, he knows has been taken off to Sokovia for trial. It’s only through the television in his cell that he learns later that she’s been found guilty and was put to death as per Sokovia’s laws. There’s a vigil being held in front of the court building. People with candles and pictures of people supposedly hurt or killed by the Scarlet Witch. They’re all crying and hugging each other as the verdict went out.

Steve knows from his own legal representation – some rookie whose firm took the case pro-bono and who really has no hope of winning this for Steve. Steve’s asked to talk to Tony for more acceptable representation – once Steve apologizes of course and they move on from everything and start anew – but the lawyer looks at him like he’s insane. It’s only through those moments that Steve learns that Nat died attempting to escape – although there’s rumors that it was a hit put out from one of the Black Widow’s enemies, or perhaps someone who didn’t want her to speak since she’d made a deal to tell all in exchange for clemency – and Clint has just gone to prison where they expect he’ll be for a long, long time. He never held the clout that Nat did and no one had been particularly interested in making any deals with him. He hears that he’s also going through a divorce during it all and how that hurt his court case.

Sam has the lightest of all the sentences, not that his is light by any means. Domestic and International terrorism charges come with a lengthy term and Sam doesn’t fight any of it Steve’s told. He was just the soldier in Steve’s army but his actions were done by his own hands leading to hundreds of deaths and injuries and people are demanding payment for that.

Just like they’re demanding it from Steve. He sits in the court rooms and listens to the people argue and debate and color all of his actions with a wide paint brush like he’d always intended for this harm to occur.

_ ‘It doesn’t matter what Mr. Rogers **intended** to do, what matters is what he did. Intention is not defensible. Actions are.’ _The prosecuting lawyer states and Steve can see the jury nodding along with them. He’s not surprised in the slightest when they come back after one of the shortest deliberations in a jury with a unanimous vote of guilty on all charges.

He thinks he sees Tony sitting in the back of the courtroom that day, but only a quick glance before the guards take him and drag him out of there. Steve’s power suppression cuffs have always alerted him to the fact that Tony’s been involved but Steve still wishes that he could have looked Tony in the eyes and let the brunet know that he’s gone too far. It never happens though. Instead they return him to his special cell and he waits and waits.

Thanos’s threat comes and goes and he waits. The next threat comes and goes and he waits. Tony Stark starts several new groups along a new group of Avengers and he waits. A school for gifted and powered individuals starts and he still waits.

Tony thrives, and Steve keeps on waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> Please no comments of a negative or critiquing nature. Thank you for understanding.


End file.
